


Not Like That

by astolat



Category: American Idol RPF (Season 8)
Genre: Imported, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-01
Updated: 2009-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:03:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It just wasn't like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Like That

[Main fanfic page](../)

Written for prompt #25 (and kind of #54) for the first [ontd_ai kink meme](http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_ai/tag/%21kink+meme). ♥

And I am also totally counting it for "drugs" in my cliche bingo card!

  
Written for the [Cliche Bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/922.html) challenge! 

<br/> td.bingo {border: 1px solid black; vertical-align: center; text-align: center; width: 100px; height: 100px;}<br/> table.bingo {font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 0.6em;}<br/>

Crackfic | [Drugs](http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/idol/Not%20Like%20That.shtml) | [Zombies](http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/idol/House%20of%20the%20Living.shtml) | Speech-deprived | Road trip  
---|---|---|---|---  
Jealousy | Mutation/physical transformation | Weird crossovers | Futurefic | Touching, hugging, and cuddling  
Hypothermia | First-person narration |  | Freestyle crossover | [Sleeping arrangements](http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/idol/Rebound.shtml)  
We're all going to die! | Hooker AU | [Seduction](http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/idol/Proselytizing.shtml) | Telepathy | Families  
Backstory | Darkfic | Worst-case scenario | First times | Yearning/oblivious  
  
**Not Like That**  
by astolat 

A heat wave hit Utah the same time their tour did, and the air conditioning at the E center had only been switched on ten minutes before they pulled in: backstage was a sweltering maze of concrete, and Kris broke a sweat carrying his guitar case down the hall. The only livable spot was the green room set aside for the top ten. Adam said, "Oh, thank god," as he came inside, and then he stuck his head out into the hallway and said to the roadies, "Guys, don't even; come in here before you all get heatstroke and let's just wait until it cools down." 

That night after the show, by way of thanks, the roadies broke out their personal stash of weed. Kris would have given it a miss and just hung out, except Danny pulled a little freak-out, standing up fast and heading away over to the far side of the room, couple of the roadies rolling their eyes at his back. At that point, Kris figured it would've looked like a statement, and one he wasn't interested in making, so when Adam handed over the bong, Kris pulled in a long, sweet-smoky breath before handing it back. 

It was a lot more intense than he remembered, from the couple of times he'd given it a shot in college. The smell stuck on his tongue, spicy and kind of nice, and when the bong came around a second time, Kris took another hit off it after all. 

"Oh, you guys brought the _good_ stuff," Adam said dreamily, squirming himself down deeper into the couch. 

The couch was broken-down just enough to be squashy, the room was nice and dim after the hot lights on stage, and the show had been pretty fucking awesome. Kris took a few more hits. He felt really great, warm and muzzy and almost meltingly comfortable in his skin. He stretched out wide, arms and legs, arched his back until the muscles cracked satisfyingly, and then he kicked his legs up over the arm of the couch and lay back, letting his head tip onto Adam's thigh. 

Adam was sprawled with his head leaning against the back of the couch and his eyes shut, drowsy and smiling. He was down to just his leather pants and boots; he'd stripped off his jacket and his sweat-soaked tank after the show. He put his hand into Kris's hair and rubbed his scalp, breaking up all the stiff, gelled spikes; it felt fantastic. Kris rubbed his head against Adam's hand. 

Somebody brought in a huge platter of wings and fries right when Kris started getting hungry, except he didn't really want to sit up. Adam laughed and fed him bites. He dripped a little ketchup on the side of Kris's mouth, wiping it back up with the edge of his little finger, salty on the tip of Kris's tongue; he'd gone to lick the ketchup away. 

After another couple of rounds, Adam nudged him and squirmed around until he was lying down, too, his legs over the other arm of the couch and their heads in opposite directions; Kris was lying half on top of him, pillowed on his stomach, and Adam had an arm under his thighs, hand resting on Kris's hip. Kris closed his eyes and just drifted. There were a few conversations going overhead, the sound of a whirring fan, all of it blurring into white noise. 

"Hey," Cathy the tour manager said, and Kris opened his eyes and looked up. "Time to get back on the bus, guys, sorry." 

Kris groaned, and then he swung his legs over and got up, giving Adam a hand. "Last hit for the road?" somebody said, and Kris took it, wanting to ride this feeling straight into his bunk, and he was half leaning over onto Adam as they stumbled out and wobbly climbed up into the bus. 

Adam tried to get into his bunk twice and nearly came down in a heap the second time. Kris rolled back in his bunk laughing. "Yep, that top one's great," he said, heeling his sneakers off against the edge of his bunk. 

"Ha ha, hilarious," Adam said, and sat down on the edge of Kris's bunk to get his boots off. He peeled out of his jeans, too, and then craned his head out to look up at the bunk, and then he groaned and flopped down next to Kris instead. 

"This is not a two-person bunk," Kris said, poking him in the side. 

"We fit," Adam whined—it was definitely a Grade-A whine. "Besides, you're tiny." 

" _That's_ the angle you think is gonna get you allowed to stay?" Kris said, except Adam was already rolling on his side and stealing Kris's pillow, and Kris was feeling too lazy and comfortable to argue about it. Maybe to make sure they experienced the full climate range or something, the bus had been air-conditioned to arctic blast levels, so it was actually kind of nice to have Adam there, and the confused looks from Danny and Mike as they came back from the bathroom and got into their bunks were kind of a bonus. 

Kris kicked his way out of his jeans, ignoring Adam's muffled complaints: you invaded a guy's bunk, you took your chances. Then he pushed Adam's shoulder up until he could haul back the pillow, and settled in; Adam huffed a little and then draped himself mostly over Kris's chest and tucked his head in. Kris was still pretty well baked, loose and relaxed and heavy-limbed; all it felt was good, like their bodies just figured out a way to fit together, and Adam's back was broad and warm when Kris idly smoothed his hand down it. 

Adam was already pretty much asleep, the weed swapping their places around for once; Kris felt completely zen, weightless, but sleep wasn't coming. He kept petting Adam, just enjoying skin on skin, and Adam snuggled in closer and slid a hand under his t-shirt. Kris shifted his weight, and between them they got the shirt off him. 

And apparently, a little while after that it seemed to them like a great idea to get all the way naked and cuddle up some more, because that was how they woke up a few hours later. 

The bus was still rolling, everybody else was still asleep. The air was even colder than before; Kris would've been pretty glad for the naked cuddling with Adam, if it hadn't been, you know, naked cuddling with Adam, which he was pretty sure crossed a bunch of lines, and which he was probably due to freak out over, any second now. 

"So, how about that pot," Adam said, after a bit. "Uh, is this—weird?" 

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it should be a lot weirder than it is," Kris said, because the freakout wasn't showing up on schedule. 

"Okay," Adam said, "in that case, can I vote for just going back to sleep? Because it's fucking freezing in here." 

Kris thought about it for a couple of seconds, and then he said, "Yeah," and pulled the blanket up higher over them. 

# 

"So this really isn't going to be weird," Kris said, the next morning, while they were sitting and having their coffee in the hotel restaurant. Adam's leg was pressed up against his, warm and comfortable, and Kris had his arm stretched out over the top of the banquette. He didn't feel edgy or nervous, or want to pull away. Actually he kind of wanted to put his hand in Adam's hair; it was all messed-up in back. 

"You know," Adam said, "there's lots of people who think it's weird our being friends at all, so—whatever. Fuck that noise. I know it's not like that, you know it's not like that, and if you're okay, I'm okay." 

"Sounds right," Kris said, and polished off his coffee, and afterwards he did run his fingers into Adam's hair, until he got it lying flat again. 

# 

He'd already liked where they'd gotten to during the season, being able to just put an arm around Adam's waist, or get a hug from him, or touch his back. He liked it a whole lot more now he could take off his shirt and sit down between Adam's legs and get the knots in his shoulders worked on while they watched some TV, late in the hotel, Adam's thumbs pressing in hard and just right, and afterwards smoothing the heels of his hands down over the heated-up skin. 

Kris also liked having Adam curled up in bed next to him, not even touching except for a hand flung out and resting on his thigh, while he read a little bit before conking out. He liked Adam working on his makeup in the bathroom while Kris showered, the two of them talking, and Adam fussing with his hair or demanding a wardrobe change before they went out. They swapped the spare keycards to their hotel rooms at each check-in, and just settled in whichever one was nicer. 

A few days later, Kris overheard Lil asking Adam, "Okay, honey, you can tell me to mind my own business, but I am saying this as your friend: what are you doing?" 

"It's really not like that," Adam said. "Yeah, I see you fighting off that eyeroll, but it's really not. Nothing is going on." 

"Adam," Lil said, "I hate to tell you this, but something _is_ going on, and it really _is_ like that." 

Except it wasn't: it wasn't about sex at all. It was about _walls_ , stupid ones, and ripping them down. Part of it was all the craziness that was going on around them. Every single day was hard in one way or another. Every single day was also amazing and wild and exciting, and Kris wouldn't have given it up for a goddamn thing, but you know, still _hard_ , and by the end of the night he was always run down to fumes. His muscles hurt, his head hurt, his stomach was in knots, and then he hauled himself up into Adam's bunk and crawled into his arms, and all of it eased up. 

"I think a lot of people just get all snail-shell, you know, really self-protective," Adam said, stroking his back lightly, fingers spread and just barely running over the skin. "And we see other people living like that, and we think that's how it's supposed to be, and you can only let people in if you're fucking them. But if you trust someone, if you have that chemistry, why does it have to be like that? We both know it's not about sex, with us." 

"Yeah, I guess that's it," Kris said, yawning, and tucked his cheek against Adam's shoulder. "Night," he mumbled, and faded out while Adam was saying, "Are you asleep already again? You are; that so drives me nuts." 

It was only a short hop that night, and the driver pulled into the hotel parking lot only a couple of hours later, so Kris was groggy and dazed while they stumbled out of the bus with their bags, and Adam had fallen asleep about fifteen minutes before they'd stopped, so he was worse, and neither of them remembered to set the alarm that should've gone off at a quarter to six, to wake them up in time to catch the plane to their recording sessions in L.A. 

Adam's phone buzzed into the nightstand lamp with a reminder text message from his handler, and Kris lifted his head blearily and saw daylight coming in between the curtains. "Oh, fuck," Adam said, and they scrambled for the shower at the same time. Kris got it running while Adam went frantically digging product out of his bag, and they crammed in, trading off the shampoo and sliding past each other to get under the spray, both of them slippery with soap. Past security, Adam grabbed one of Kris's guitars, and they made it to the gate sprinting with two minutes to spare and collapsed into their first-class seats and fell asleep again, fingers laced on the armrest while the plane took off. 

The sessions went great, and afterwards they went out with Adam's producer and songwriter and met a bunch of mutual friends in a WeHo club where nobody looked twice if Kris had his hand on Adam's thigh, or if they were sharing their drinks, or if Adam leaned in and nuzzled against Kris's temple, laughing. Okay, so while they were on the dance floor, Adam's hand tucked into his back pocket to keep them close in the jumping crowd, someone did lean in and say to Adam, "Do they make a Hallmark for _congratulations on converting your straight_?" but it was a stranger, not anybody who knew them. 

# 

Drake dumped Adam two days before they were due to hit Louisiana. "He said I wasn't emotionally available!" Adam moaned drunkenly, his head in Kris's lap; Kris had come back from a studio session and found Adam about halfway through the minibar. "What am I supposed to do in one fifteen-minute phone conversation a day? I was going to be _so_ emotionally available this weekend." 

He snuffled and put out a hand; Kris cracked open the little Grey Goose bottle and gave it to him. Adam took a swig and added, "I'm not closed off! Do you think I'm closed off? Oh, God. I'm totally turning into one of those horrible people who gets famous and can't have relationships with normal people anymore, I'm going to die alone—" 

"You are not going to die alone," Kris said. "And you're not closed-off! He's a freaking jerk, man, don't give it another thought. He is not worth the time." 

Adam heaved a sad, damp sigh. Kris rubbed his shoulders. "Come on, let's order some ice cream from room service and watch some on-demand. I'll even sit through Gossip Girl." 

"Yeah, okay," Adam said, and let Kris take away the vodka. 

# 

Kris felt pretty lucky that Katy wasn't as high maintenance as Drake; they weren't even talking every day anymore. The tour was pretty much the same one night after another; they'd all gotten the routine down, and nothing all that new happened. There wasn't much to talk about if the only difference was how much traffic they'd hit or what the weather was like, and Katy was back in Conway just living life, hanging with her friends. It made sense to save up a few days' worth of stories before they talked. 

She came out to the shows in Newark, and they went out together, the two of them and Adam. It was a lot of fun, and hanging out in the hotel afterwards, playing Scrabble until it got late, until Adam gave him a gleeful hidden thumbs-up and took off for his own room. But Kris didn't mind that Katy said, a little apologetically, "You know, I'm really kind of tired," because he was pretty wiped, himself; they curled up in bed and fell asleep right off. 

So it hit pretty out of the blue when they got to Little Rock and Katy came to see him about the divorce. 

"Uh," Kris said blankly. 

"I'm sorry," Katy said. "I should've told you in New York, I just—there wasn't a good moment." 

"Baby," he said, "I know it's been rough, me on the road—we shouldn't decide anything until after the tour. We could get counseling—" 

"Kris, there's somebody else," Katy said. 

"No, there _isn't_ ," Kris said, getting ready to explain; he figured somebody had told her some mixed-up story about— 

"I mean for _me_ ," Katy said. 

"Well, the way she was holding hands with that guy who drove her here was a little bit of a clue?" Allison said, doubtfully; Kris had wanted to know why she wasn't more surprised, after he'd wandered dazed into the green room and gotten hugged even before he'd spilled to her. Adam was still out at a recording studio somewhere. 

"She was what?" Kris said. 

"Oh my God!" Adam said, a lot more satisfyingly, when he got back; he hugged Kris hard, and that night after the show, organized all the guys and took him out to a strip-and-karaoke club, and bought him a lap-dance and six shots of whiskey. A couple hours later, Kris was standing shirtless on a table belting out "She Works Hard For The Money" with the girls cheering. The night ended up with Adam mostly carrying him back to the hotel room, and cuddling him all night, except for when he was holding Kris's head over the toilet while he puked up the six shots, five beers, and one bad-idea pina colada. 

# 

Kris was pretty proud of how well he was dealing with the whole thing; thankfully Katy was with him about keeping the split on the down-low, and they were waiting to make it official until after his album had dropped. So at least he wasn't being chased by the media, and he didn't get plastered again or sleep with any groupies— 

"I'm just saying, if you have any sudden impulses," Adam said, trying to make Kris keep a handful of condoms on him. 

"I'm not going to have any sudden impulses," Kris said. 

"Come on, just take them; for me?" Adam said. "A condom is thirty seconds, herpes is forever." 

—fine, but he hadn't slept with any groupies and he wasn't tempted to, either. So far, the hands-down best coping method he'd found was their TV-and-ice-cream nights, anyway, even if he had to trade off Gossip Girl reruns with baseball. Adam had actually gotten legit excited about the game once, and Kris had been ready to try for an every-two-nights schedule, but then it turned out Adam had been mostly excited over Derek Jeter's ass, and Kris was ready to do a lot to escape Gossip Girl, but that did not include turning into a Yankees fan. 

So he was doing okay with it; what _was_ getting to him, more and more, was just the fucking schedule. They were halfway through the summer, and the pace had just shifted up from insane to ludicrous with a side order of frantic, because Kris didn't like half the songs he'd written and Jive didn't like the other half, and if he didn't pull something better out of his ass in the next six weeks, he was pretty sure they were going to win when it came time for the final cut. So he was trying to write at night, on the bus; he was flying to recording sessions twice a week and getting into local studios every chance there was. Meanwhile the shows were almost starting to be boring, when they couldn't change the sets up at all from night to night, and his voice was getting more and more shot thanks to endless interviews and thirty takes in a row. 

Maybe it should've been a silver lining that he was too busy to get seriously depressed, but it was about a quarter-ounce of silver in a whole lot of grey. He'd thought he was ready for this, and he was, he wanted it, but it had gradually stopped being the world's biggest fucking carnival and turned into work, and it was a hundred fifty hours a week of work, and he was so tired he wasn't making it through more than one inning a night before he fell over onto Adam's shoulder—if Adam hadn't fallen over onto him first. It was a tossup whether either one of them managed to get the TV off, or if they woke up to the morning shows being aggressively happy at them. 

After two solid weeks like that, Kris woke up with a jolt and sparks flying: Adam had thrown the alarm clock by the bed right _into_ the television, and the flat-screen panel had cracked from corner to corner. "Oh my God, I'm _completely_ freaking out," Adam said, choked-off, and he actually put his face in his hands and cried, which made Kris _want_ to throw something into the television, if it hadn't already been a smoking wreck. 

He grabbed Adam by the shoulders and pulled him into a hug, and Adam took one last gulping breath against Kris's shoulder and said, muffled, "We've got press." 

"Yeah," Kris said, and held on anyway, because he was kind of shaking. They got to the stadium an hour late, and Adam said to his handler, "We're not doing anything after the show tonight, and we're clearing tomorrow completely." 

"What he said," Kris said, and possibly they were kind of wild-eyed while they said it, because not only did the handlers not argue, one of the guys from the crew came up to Adam afterwards and said, "Hey, man, do you want—" 

"Oh my God, _yes_ , please," Adam said, and put the bag of weed away in his inside jacket pocket, very carefully. 

They did do the meet-and-greet in the end, because Kris just felt too bad about disappointing the fans, but they made it quick, and afterwards when Anoop asked, "You guys coming to dinner?" Kris said, "No, thanks, man." 

"Horoscope says room service," Adam said devoutly. 

Matt, going by, elbowed Anoop. "Horoscope says _date night_." 

Anoop and Megan laughed; Kris rolled his eyes. "Yeah, hilarious. Think that's going to get old in the next ten years or so?" 

"Nope," Matt said. "I'm thinking not," Megan said. "Neverrrr!" Allison yelled over, sticking her head out the car window just to put her two cents in. 

"You guys are all jerks," Kris said. 

"Aw, come on, Kris," Anoop said, grinning. "Tell us again how it's not like that. You never know, maybe we'll believe you this time." 

"Whatever!" Adam said, tugging Kris away towards their car by the belt. "The three things I want most out of life right now are a steak, a joint, and sleeping in until five in the afternoon, and I refuse to delay just to argue with the unenlightened." 

They ordered prime rib, rare, and killed a bottle of red with it, and afterwards Adam cannibalized the pack of Marlboros he'd bought downstairs and used the papers to roll almost half the bag into a giant blunt, and they sprawled on the bed with it. "Oh, God, _yes_ ," Adam said, taking a long, slow hit before he passed it over to Kris. "Oh. _Oh_ , I so needed that." 

Kris took a pull, keeping his throat open and breathing it in deep, practically visualizing the smoke working through him. It couldn't wipe out all the stress, but by the time it had burned down to where it was stinging their fingers, he was more than high enough not to care, especially after they broke the potato chips and chocolate out of the minibar. "Best thing ever," Adam said indistinctly, licking his fingers. 

"Yeah," Kris groaned; the double-shot of salt and sugar was almost as good as the pot. 

Adam laughed. "You've got—" he said, and swiped at the corner of Kris's mouth with his thumb. "Can't take you anywhere, Kris." 

Kris grinned at him and smeared the end of his half of the chocolate bar over Adam's face while Adam yelped and batted at him. "Yeah, what was that?" he said, and leaned in to lick it off, a big messy swipe of his tongue along Adam's cheek and into his mouth, smoky and salt and sweet all together, so good he didn't feel like stopping. 

"Hey, do I have to?" he asked, licking in again. "Adam, do I have to stop?" 

"No, omig'd," Adam said, indistinctly, around his tongue, and Kris tossed the candy bar onto the end table and pulled Adam's head in for a better angle, letting his hands sink into Adam's thick hair. Adam got his hands on Kris's hips; Kris groaned into Adam's mouth and reached down to pop his fly open, because fuck, he did not need to be wearing jeans right now. 

"Wait, I really _don't_ need to be wearing jeans right now," he said, breaking off. 

"I don't need to be wearing _clothes_ right now," Adam said, fucking genius, and wow, if this had been good before, it was ten times better naked, skin on skin like some kind of revelation, Adam's hands on his ass cupping him close while Kris sucked on his lower lip and rubbed his cock off against Adam's thigh, because it was in exactly the right place and exactly the right kind of firm and soft at the same time. 

"I love your dick," Adam said, rubbing the heel of his hand against Kris's cock. "Is that weird to say? I seriously do, it's just such the perfect size." 

"Jesus, you can like my dick all you want, keep doing that," Kris said, pushing into Adam's hand, and Adam wrapped it around Kris's dick, the thick bands of all his rings cool and smooth on Kris's skin, and while he was stroking, he sucked on a couple of his fingers and then pushed them inside Kris's ass. 

"Oh my fucking God, that's unbelievable," Kris said, arching up. "Adam. Holy shit, Adam, that is so fucking good." 

"Yeah?" Adam said, licking Kris's neck. "Hang on, I've got some lube in my bag, I can get deeper." 

"Fuck, yes," Kris said, and Adam got the lube. "You've got an amazing cock, too," Kris added, because he felt like it was appropriate, and also because it was true; he'd never touched another guy's cock before, but Adam's felt really good, silky-soft skin and cut head, and he was ridiculously big. 

"God, yeah," Adam said, rocking his hips back and forth. "Where did you put those condoms I gave you?" 

"They're in my pocket," Kris said, groping for his pants; he was glad he'd just thrown them down to the foot of the bed. "You want to fuck me?" 

"Yeah, is that okay?" Adam said. 

"Hell, yeah," Kris said. 

After that, Adam sucked Kris's cock for a while, and after that he showed Kris how to fuck him. Then they caught their breath and Adam re-rolled the end of the blunt and they smoked the rest of it, and Kris fucked Adam again in the middle of that, because Adam looked so unbelievably hot lying back with the blunt in his hand and his eyes heavy-lidded and smoke swirling around his fingers and his wrist and spilling down to the sheets, and Kris loved the feeling of Adam's incredibly long legs wrapped around his waist. 

# 

"So," Adam said. It was maybe around two in the afternoon; Kris wasn't really sure. They'd closed the blackout curtains before they'd gotten started. 

"Huh," Kris said. They were lying sideways across the foot of the bed, on bare mattress; the sheets and pillows and comforter were all on the floor. One of the bedside lamps had fallen over and gotten smashed. The rest of the chocolate bar was stuck to the wall. 

"I hate to say this," Adam said thoughtfully, "but it's possible that maybe it _is_ like that." 

"Yeah," Kris said. 

They just lay there together for a moment longer. Kris stretched. He felt pretty fantastic, actually. He nudged Adam's shoulder with his nose. "Breakfast?" 

"Absolutely," Adam said, and kissed him. 

# End 

With many thanks to Merry for beta! 

All feedback much appreciated!

[Read Comments](http://astolat.livejournal.com/200377.html#comments) \- [Post Comment](http://astolat.livejournal.com/200377.html?mode=reply)  
  
---  
  
[Main fanfic page](../)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Not Like That / written by astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/226039) by [EosRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EosRose/pseuds/EosRose)




End file.
